9 ms·

Ah, I see I've arrived at Hacker/USA Government Abuses News. And I say that as somebody deeply interested in these stories.

adestefan 13y ago
Gotta get in your daily outrage.
- emddudley 13y ago
  Two minutes hate.
loceng 13y ago
I think it's important so people can build a picture that includes the full scope, and with the more areas and dots to connect, the more prominent it will become in ones' mind.
MWil 13y ago
Between here and Reddit, it's overkill...until you realize here the people might actually have the ability to execute to do something about it more quickly and over at Reddit well...just throw up the best meme you can and sit back and reap the karma.
- Vivtek 13y ago
  On the other hand when Reddit does something, the talking heads notice that something happens (however badly it all comes out), while when HNN carps about things nobody cares.
- oinksoft 13y ago
  Between your comment and loceng's, there seems to be an agenda, and the latent idea of co-opting programmers and decision makers to make "something" happen. I understand people are furious, but people are furious about all sorts of things that maybe folks here could intervene on if prodded. I think long-time HN users mostly care about where technology notably intersects with these scandals (or anything for that matter).
raganwald 13y ago
Who do you think builds these things? Email, cameras in phones, handwriting recognition, network analysis, facial recognition, big data... We should be highly aware of both edges of the swords we forge in our volcano.
- oinksoft 13y ago
  Perhaps I've always found it obvious that creating these things, working for companies with close ties to military and surveillance (Lockheed, etc.) is quite near evil and that professionals with integrity would not do that. I think that is a minority view in our profession, so you are probably right.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    If you think working for Lockheed is evil, what do you think of working for a company like Facebook, that profits from selling the personal data of teenagers to companies who take advantage of their adolescence to peddle overpriced products to them that they don't need and that their parents can't really afford? I'm not saying Facebook is evil, but let's face it the world is a lot more morally complex than the self-righteous want to make it out to be. This idea that Silicon Valley is full of engineers toiling in a Parthenon of virtue while evil people in Washington misuse the fruits of their creations is utter bunk. Like every technology in history, software and internet technology can be used for different things, and there is widespread disagreement on the virtues of those ends. E.g. Einstein might have regretted his involvement in the nuclear program, but there are a huge number of people who to this day think the development of nuclear weapons was a positive thing in how it ensured American ascendency for the succeeding half-century. At the same time, you'll find lots of people who think Lockeed, etc, are doing very noble things by developing technologies that allow American foreign policy to be implemented while getting fewer American soldiers killed (and reducing collateral damage too--a cruise missile is a lot more damaging than a drone strike). There is probably no country in history that has maintained its supremacy for as long as America has with so relatively few casualties among its armed forces. You can thank Lockheed for that.
    - 13y ago
sneak 13y ago
The fact that Obama declared on national TV that they only spy on non-US citizens (6.5+bn humans) without a warrant is the biggest news in the internet industry since the mass deployment of broadband a decade ago. Knock it off. These specific government abuses may well destroy the bulk of the revenue streams for the largest companies in silicon valley. If that isn't on topic for HN, I don't know what is.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  No it isn't, that was going on all through the Cold War. It's just more efficient now. This isn't just a government problem either; people in europe are at least as unhappy about firms like Google and Facebook warehousing their data, but at least over in Europe they have robust privacy laws that service providers have to comply with. See for example these stories, in which (some) American users express puzzlement over Euros' insistence that they are the owners of their personal data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3127185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3127185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036157 There's a Facebook bias to these because those were the easiest threads for me to remember & get search hits on, but the principles apply to any firm that retains customer data. EU users have a legal right to demand companies divulge all dta stored about them, and insist on its permanent deletion - something that's not available to US users. Now, you can hardly insist that governments be less powerful than the companies they are supposed to regulate. If you want real privacy, then you need it explicitly stated in law, and structured so that it can't be signed away in exchange for some commercial benefit, much the same as you can't legally sign yourself into slavery; such contractual arrangements are inherently invalid. This is going to require a constitutional amendment, because otherwise companies are going to defend their data hoarding and unilateral exploitation of said data on First Amendment grounds.
  - unclebucknasty 13y ago
    Interesting points. One thing all of this brings to mind is that we appear to be nearing a crossroads (perhaps we've already passed it). That is, we'll have to very soon decide en masse whether we are OK with the demise of privacy or not. This is irrespective of whether our privacy is lost to companies, government, or both. Because it seems that by default, people are simply becoming accustomed to a world without personal privacy. In fact, stories such as that referenced on this thread are coming out with such frequency and ferocity now that one wonders whether it has the effect of simply jading people with sheer volume (whether designed for this intent or not). In any event, we've been moving in this direction for some time. And, after some point those who still care about privacy won't be able to summon the support needed to effect a return to its protection.
alayne 13y ago
Just tell me where I need to click to register my outrage this time.
wwweston 13y ago
It's a bit on the heavy side, but on the other hand, the surveillance under discussion relies on technology, in many cases recent technology and products that 5-10 years ago many of us were really excited about and may not have seen the downsides of. It's pretty relevant.
swalsh 13y ago
Einstein spent his entire life changing the world for great good. Of course another one of this contributions lead to the development of the Atomic Bomb. It is said that in his later life he slumped into a bout of depression knowing how his work was being used. On a different scale, i think a lot of us are realizing that all the things we've been working towards (machine vision, machine learning, twitter, facebook etc) are also being used against us. Its a bit disappointing really. Of course, ever since nuclear proliferation, worldwide violence has been dramatically reduced... so take that for what its worth ;)
enko 13y ago
I think it's OK for now. This is big news; very very big. I am a fan of trying to keep HN on topic but for now I am very interested in what everyone here has to say. I have to say, I thought I was very up to date on US spying - I know people who have worked with Echelon and would not say certain words on the phone - but I have still been blown away with the revelations. They're game-changing. They're relevant to HN. Business exists in a context; that context is changing around us, or at least being revealed for its true form. It's very relevant. And FWIW I am astounded at the lengths "they" are going to get him and the massive political capital they seem happy to burn in the attempt. Genuinely amazing stuff. I have no idea what's next; no-one has. We're in a genuinely unprecedented era here. Anything is possible.
- eli 13y ago
  This particular linked story really isn't very big news.
  - enko 13y ago
    Well maybe not for you, but for me it's another piece of a jigsaw which is beginning to show a very ugly picture indeed. You're a US citizen I see. Well, maybe you don't understand or give a shit, but from the outside, the opinion of your country is being revised dramatically downwards. Very dramatically. All of this human rights, freedom of speech, fourth amendment stuff is being exposed for the bullshit that it is. The damage to the reputation of the USA from these events is incalculable. Do you have any conception of what it means when normal people are suggesting that a whistleblower on the run from the USA seek refuge in Russia or China?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - enko 13y ago
      > Maybe you view the scanning of the outside of people's letters differently now... but it's not a new story and the article says as much. I guess it's the context of an all-pervasive spying culture that lends it a new relevance. And who cares if it's "new". We might only realise the relevance of an old story years later. We might only realise a whistleblower was telling the truth after years of dismissing their tall tales. edit: eli deleted the post I quote. Oh, don't like things you say online being used against you later? That's not new either.
run4yourlives 13y ago
Agreed, although the top comment here was actually quite interesting. HN has made an exception for all things US gov't spying related. I even lost my flagging rights for flagging all the snowden stuff (which I thought was exactly what you were supposed to do when you thought something was off topic... not my fault it was the entire front page!) It's an important topic, but like you I preferred when HN was an oasis of tech away from this nonsense.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Wonder if it would make sense to have two categories: Tech and non-tech. Though some topics would definitely straddle the line.
- DanBC 13y ago
  I strongly agree that there is too much "shallowly interesting" stuff, rather than "deeply interesting" stuff on HN. It's a shame that people who flag "too much" fluff lose their flagging ability. I flag 4 submissions per day; I still have my flag button. I upvote good articles on new. I've been restricting my comments on the fluff articles. I've been upvoting the comments in good submission threads. Perhaps someone could create an "HN-Shallowly-interesting"?
- kirubakaran 13y ago
  How did you find out that you lost your flagging rights? Did the 'flag' link disappear?
  - run4yourlives 13y ago
    Pretty much, yup.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  It's an important topic, but like you I preferred when HN was an oasis of tech away from this nonsense. Unfortunately, politics have invaded our tech oasis, and I don't mean HN. The politicization and militarization of technology is undeniable; at this point, retreating to some new oasis and denying it won't make it go away. While I do want a site where I can see more articles about Erlang and lambda calculus, for now at least, I can accept the pressing need to maintain focus on political issues that undermine our ability to build the technology we want and have it used for good instead of evil.
bpodgursky 13y ago
"Hacker" now optional.
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  Call me crazy but I can imagine seeing this type of stuff in the ole 2600, no?

adestefan 13y ago

Gotta get in your daily outrage.

emddudley 13y ago
Two minutes hate.

loceng 13y ago

I think it's important so people can build a picture that includes the full scope, and with the more areas and dots to connect, the more prominent it will become in ones' mind.

MWil 13y ago

Between here and Reddit, it's overkill...until you realize here the people might actually have the ability to execute to do something about it more quickly and over at Reddit well...just throw up the best meme you can and sit back and reap the karma.

Vivtek 13y ago
On the other hand when Reddit does something, the talking heads notice that something happens (however badly it all comes out), while when HNN carps about things nobody cares.
oinksoft 13y ago
Between your comment and loceng's, there seems to be an agenda, and the latent idea of co-opting programmers and decision makers to make "something" happen. I understand people are furious, but people are furious about all sorts of things that maybe folks here could intervene on if prodded. I think long-time HN users mostly care about where technology notably intersects with these scandals (or anything for that matter).

raganwald 13y ago

Who do you think builds these things? Email, cameras in phones, handwriting recognition, network analysis, facial recognition, big data... We should be highly aware of both edges of the swords we forge in our volcano.

oinksoft 13y ago
Perhaps I've always found it obvious that creating these things, working for companies with close ties to military and surveillance (Lockheed, etc.) is quite near evil and that professionals with integrity would not do that. I think that is a minority view in our profession, so you are probably right.
- rayiner 13y ago
  If you think working for Lockheed is evil, what do you think of working for a company like Facebook, that profits from selling the personal data of teenagers to companies who take advantage of their adolescence to peddle overpriced products to them that they don't need and that their parents can't really afford? I'm not saying Facebook is evil, but let's face it the world is a lot more morally complex than the self-righteous want to make it out to be. This idea that Silicon Valley is full of engineers toiling in a Parthenon of virtue while evil people in Washington misuse the fruits of their creations is utter bunk. Like every technology in history, software and internet technology can be used for different things, and there is widespread disagreement on the virtues of those ends. E.g. Einstein might have regretted his involvement in the nuclear program, but there are a huge number of people who to this day think the development of nuclear weapons was a positive thing in how it ensured American ascendency for the succeeding half-century. At the same time, you'll find lots of people who think Lockeed, etc, are doing very noble things by developing technologies that allow American foreign policy to be implemented while getting fewer American soldiers killed (and reducing collateral damage too--a cruise missile is a lot more damaging than a drone strike). There is probably no country in history that has maintained its supremacy for as long as America has with so relatively few casualties among its armed forces. You can thank Lockheed for that.
  - 13y ago

sneak 13y ago

The fact that Obama declared on national TV that they only spy on non-US citizens (6.5+bn humans) without a warrant is the biggest news in the internet industry since the mass deployment of broadband a decade ago. Knock it off. These specific government abuses may well destroy the bulk of the revenue streams for the largest companies in silicon valley. If that isn't on topic for HN, I don't know what is.

anigbrowl 13y ago
No it isn't, that was going on all through the Cold War. It's just more efficient now. This isn't just a government problem either; people in europe are at least as unhappy about firms like Google and Facebook warehousing their data, but at least over in Europe they have robust privacy laws that service providers have to comply with. See for example these stories, in which (some) American users express puzzlement over Euros' insistence that they are the owners of their personal data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3127185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3127185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036157 There's a Facebook bias to these because those were the easiest threads for me to remember & get search hits on, but the principles apply to any firm that retains customer data. EU users have a legal right to demand companies divulge all dta stored about them, and insist on its permanent deletion - something that's not available to US users. Now, you can hardly insist that governments be less powerful than the companies they are supposed to regulate. If you want real privacy, then you need it explicitly stated in law, and structured so that it can't be signed away in exchange for some commercial benefit, much the same as you can't legally sign yourself into slavery; such contractual arrangements are inherently invalid. This is going to require a constitutional amendment, because otherwise companies are going to defend their data hoarding and unilateral exploitation of said data on First Amendment grounds.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Interesting points. One thing all of this brings to mind is that we appear to be nearing a crossroads (perhaps we've already passed it). That is, we'll have to very soon decide en masse whether we are OK with the demise of privacy or not. This is irrespective of whether our privacy is lost to companies, government, or both. Because it seems that by default, people are simply becoming accustomed to a world without personal privacy. In fact, stories such as that referenced on this thread are coming out with such frequency and ferocity now that one wonders whether it has the effect of simply jading people with sheer volume (whether designed for this intent or not). In any event, we've been moving in this direction for some time. And, after some point those who still care about privacy won't be able to summon the support needed to effect a return to its protection.

alayne 13y ago

Just tell me where I need to click to register my outrage this time.

wwweston 13y ago

It's a bit on the heavy side, but on the other hand, the surveillance under discussion relies on technology, in many cases recent technology and products that 5-10 years ago many of us were really excited about and may not have seen the downsides of. It's pretty relevant.

swalsh 13y ago

Einstein spent his entire life changing the world for great good. Of course another one of this contributions lead to the development of the Atomic Bomb. It is said that in his later life he slumped into a bout of depression knowing how his work was being used. On a different scale, i think a lot of us are realizing that all the things we've been working towards (machine vision, machine learning, twitter, facebook etc) are also being used against us. Its a bit disappointing really. Of course, ever since nuclear proliferation, worldwide violence has been dramatically reduced... so take that for what its worth ;)

enko 13y ago

I think it's OK for now. This is big news; very very big. I am a fan of trying to keep HN on topic but for now I am very interested in what everyone here has to say. I have to say, I thought I was very up to date on US spying - I know people who have worked with Echelon and would not say certain words on the phone - but I have still been blown away with the revelations. They're game-changing. They're relevant to HN. Business exists in a context; that context is changing around us, or at least being revealed for its true form. It's very relevant. And FWIW I am astounded at the lengths "they" are going to get him and the massive political capital they seem happy to burn in the attempt. Genuinely amazing stuff. I have no idea what's next; no-one has. We're in a genuinely unprecedented era here. Anything is possible.

eli 13y ago
This particular linked story really isn't very big news.
- enko 13y ago
  Well maybe not for you, but for me it's another piece of a jigsaw which is beginning to show a very ugly picture indeed. You're a US citizen I see. Well, maybe you don't understand or give a shit, but from the outside, the opinion of your country is being revised dramatically downwards. Very dramatically. All of this human rights, freedom of speech, fourth amendment stuff is being exposed for the bullshit that it is. The damage to the reputation of the USA from these events is incalculable. Do you have any conception of what it means when normal people are suggesting that a whistleblower on the run from the USA seek refuge in Russia or China?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - enko 13y ago
    > Maybe you view the scanning of the outside of people's letters differently now... but it's not a new story and the article says as much. I guess it's the context of an all-pervasive spying culture that lends it a new relevance. And who cares if it's "new". We might only realise the relevance of an old story years later. We might only realise a whistleblower was telling the truth after years of dismissing their tall tales. edit: eli deleted the post I quote. Oh, don't like things you say online being used against you later? That's not new either.

run4yourlives 13y ago

Agreed, although the top comment here was actually quite interesting. HN has made an exception for all things US gov't spying related. I even lost my flagging rights for flagging all the snowden stuff (which I thought was exactly what you were supposed to do when you thought something was off topic... not my fault it was the entire front page!) It's an important topic, but like you I preferred when HN was an oasis of tech away from this nonsense.

unclebucknasty 13y ago
Wonder if it would make sense to have two categories: Tech and non-tech. Though some topics would definitely straddle the line.
DanBC 13y ago
I strongly agree that there is too much "shallowly interesting" stuff, rather than "deeply interesting" stuff on HN. It's a shame that people who flag "too much" fluff lose their flagging ability. I flag 4 submissions per day; I still have my flag button. I upvote good articles on new. I've been restricting my comments on the fluff articles. I've been upvoting the comments in good submission threads. Perhaps someone could create an "HN-Shallowly-interesting"?
kirubakaran 13y ago
How did you find out that you lost your flagging rights? Did the 'flag' link disappear?
- run4yourlives 13y ago
  Pretty much, yup.
nitrogen 13y ago
It's an important topic, but like you I preferred when HN was an oasis of tech away from this nonsense. Unfortunately, politics have invaded our tech oasis, and I don't mean HN. The politicization and militarization of technology is undeniable; at this point, retreating to some new oasis and denying it won't make it go away. While I do want a site where I can see more articles about Erlang and lambda calculus, for now at least, I can accept the pressing need to maintain focus on political issues that undermine our ability to build the technology we want and have it used for good instead of evil.

bpodgursky 13y ago

"Hacker" now optional.

eliasmacpherson 13y ago
Call me crazy but I can imagine seeing this type of stuff in the ole 2600, no?